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| Laurie, age 6 months (?) |
I was born in Calcutta, India on June 5, 1959, which was a Friday. My mother told me that I arrived on my own while the doctor, who had been out on the golf course, was still scrubbing up.
I have many, many memories of Calcutta.
A crow swooping down to steal a chapati while I was crossing from our house to a my nanny's small room, which was called a "godown", the word for warehouse.
We lived in a gated compound which housed our main house and I guess what would be called servant's quarters. There was a room for the nightwatchmen and two for our nannies, which were across from our house and on either side of the garage building. We had a large garden, in which we waded during the torrential monsoons in the floodwaters of Calcutta.
Mum said our doctor told her that we would never get sick after surviving all the germs of our childhoods in Calcutta. I am pretty sure what we waded in was not exactly pristine, and included whatever flooded out of the drains and sewers too. But, yes, I am a hardy creature as a result.
That it might be concluded that my parents thought it was okay for us to wade and frolic in these floodwaters, I shall not comment upon, dear reader. I leave that to your judgment. I shall not judge.
Random memories in no particular order come to mind.: Going to our nanny Julie's village and bringing home a baby mynah bird, who we put in the little cupboard up in the bathroom adjacent to our room, in which I think all four of us children slept.
I was only probably 6 or 7 and do not know why anyone thought we should bring a bird home, or put it in a closet which was accessible to our Siamese cat. I don't clearly remember what happened, just that it was not good and that I found out it had not ended well. I remember seeing our kitty, Minou, have her kittens, probably in the same bathroom.
I remember when a bat got trapped in what we used to call the "spare bedroom" next door. And I remember the snake charmers coming over to our house giving us cobra and mongoose spectacles out in our garden.
One day we were playing pirates out in the garden, during a monsoon flood, and we found a bright green parrot!
